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Authors: Marley Gibson

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BOOK: The Reason
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As we hug, I'm somewhat relieved to have shared this with someone. Saying it out loud makes it sound less possible. And as Loreen always says to me, the future truly is up to us.

I just have to see where mine takes me.

Chapter Three

"C
AN WE CLOSE THE
S
UMMERFIELD CASE
?" Becca asks. She, Celia, Taylor, and I are all spread out in my room going through our case files. "Didn't we debunk everything?"

"I don't remember that one," I say, my mind in ten thousand other locations at the moment.

"Sure you do, Kendall," Taylor says. She reaches a perfectly manicured hand across the carpet to snag the folder from Becca. "This was the one where that nice lady named Delia said she smelled cigarette smoke all around her house and thought she recognized the brand of smokes and that it was her deceased mother trying to reach out to her."

I nod my head. "Riiiiiight. But it was really her niece sneaking out onto the roof every night and smoking a butt."

Celia snickers. "I love it when we solve a case like that. Everyone all of a sudden thinks a house is haunted when anything out of the ordinary happens, but sometimes it's just possessed by the living."

Taylor scrunches up her pretty face. "I think it's sad when people call us over because they're so lonely and want someone to talk to.
Très misérable.
"

Becca adjusts her nose stud with her index finger. "There are a lot of lost people out there, Tay." She stares forward with a knowledge of how true that statement is. Becca used to be popular and a beauty queen until her grandmother passed away and Becca felt responsible for it. She wasn't, of course, but she's not the same person she used to be because of what she went through when she lost her grandmother. Her Goth look is testament to that. Although the only person I've loved and lost is my Grandma Ethel, I've learned through my ghost hunting that each and every person in this world deals with death differently. Becca's taken it further than most with her complete transformation. Still, she's one of my best friends and one of the nicest people I know.

"Remember that guy who showed us his butterfly collection?" Celia remarks as she fiddles with her K-II meter. "We sat there for what seemed like hours listening to how they go from egg to larva to pupa to butterfly ... like I don't know that."

Celia's quite the go-to gal when it comes to all things science, so I can feel her pain as she reminisces about the visit with one Mr. Norbert Bates of Cokesbury Lane in Radisson.

"Come on, Cel," I say, empathizing with Mr. Bates. "The old guy had no one to talk to and invented the ghost in his basement so we'd come over and chat with him."

"For an hour?" Celia responds.

"That's what the Internet is for, dude," Becca quips, and I laugh.

"Thank God we had Father Massimo with us," Taylor says. Then she adds, "No pun intended."

Mentors like Loreen and Father Mass are good "bodyguards" for us as well. We try not to go into any strange person's house (too many local crackpots) without adult supervision. Not that we're irresponsible or anything like that. It just pays to have an adult with us to run interference or get us out of a weird sitch ... like the butterfly show with Mr. Bates.

Celia pulls her laptop over between the two of us and scrolls through the requests from
Ghosthuntress.com
. Our website gets tons of hits from people looking for help with whatever might be haunting them. Word about our little group has certainly spread like wildfire around these parts. Lately, though, the requests seem to be getting stranger and stranger.

Celia jabs her fingers into her thick black hair and scratches at her head. "I don't know which one we should take next. There's a case of a floating head seen by a seventy-year-old man in his barn in Triple Creek—which is like four hours south of here—and then there's the couple who claim a demon lives in the central A/C in their house."

I hold up my hands. "No demonic cases. We're not demonologists and don't need to get caught up in that at all."

Becca agrees. "Damn straight. I'm not messing with that shit."

"None of us are," Celia remarks and continues to scroll through the e-mails. "God, aren't
any
of these requests local? I swear, we're spending too much in gas money getting to and from these investigations."

"Not like we're getting reimbursed for our costs."

I remind them, "No legitimate ghost-hunting group charges for their services."

"I know," Becca says. "Sometimes I wish we could, though. This traveling around is getting tough on the old teenage budget."

Taylor frowns again. "And I hardly get any time alone with Ryan these days. He's starting to think I like ghost hunting more than dating him."

I sigh long and hard, moving my hair with the heated breath. "I know how that is."

Boys. If you're not giving them one hundred percent of your attention and time, they get so needy. Not that I wouldn't like to spend more time with Jason. Since basketball season is in full swing for Radisson High School, we really need a local case to work on that will keep us from traveling and perhaps walking into a messed-up situation with someone who lives far away and that we don't know at all.

This is a good time to tell them about my convo with Mayor Shy. "If we want a local case, I've got one for us. Just talked to the owner yesterday."

"What is it?" Celia asks with her eyebrow raised. She's always poised to act on my ideas.

"It's the mayor's house."

"Awesome," Becca says.

Celia starts scribbling in her notebook. "What is she experiencing?"

I recount the history of my interaction with Donn Shy: "Well, I told you, Mayor Shy has been coming into Divining Woman for me to do tarot readings for her? She's been complaining to Loreen about all of these back problems—she doesn't know where they've come from."

Celia keeps writing in her notebook. "What are the symptoms?"

"Body ache, headaches, severe back pain," I tell her. "Her masseuse hasn't been able to pinpoint or solve the problems. Her doctor can't find anything like a break or strain or pinched nerve on the X-rays. A chiropractor was no help, and acupuncture isn't working."

"What can we do about someone's back problems?" Becca asks.

"It's not so much the back pain," I explain. "She and I have been working on the pressure points with attunement-activation healing sessions."

"That thing you've been learning to do with the pitchforks?" Becca asks.

"Tuning forks. Not pitchforks ... geesh!" I say with a laugh. "Attunement-energy healing uses the sounds and vibrations from the tuning forks to adjust whatever maladies ail you." Damn, I'm talking like a fifty-year-old all of a sudden.

"I'm with Becca," Taylor interjects. "What does her back problem have to do with an investigation?"

"There's something haunting the mayor's mansion and I think it's affecting her physically," I say.

Taylor's eyes grow wide with excitement. "Shut
up!
"

I tell my friends about the woman I saw in the window and how I just
feel
like something is messing with Mayor Shy in a way I can't explain unless we can get into the house for a full investigation. "I think we need both Loreen and Father Mass with us because deep down, I'd say we need all the help we can get with this case. The woman in the window didn't look like she wanted to leave anytime soon."

"We can't force a spirit out if it doesn't want to go," Celia says.

"No, you're right. We can, however, connect with her, and I'll try to explain that she's harming the living that are still there."

"You think Mayor Shy would be up to an investigation?" Taylor asks. "I've always wanted to see the inside of that gorgeous house. I mean, I've never been inside, but it seems
très
chic and I bet I could take some awesome pictures of the inside and maybe submit them to a Southern-living type magazine."

"She's definitely on board."

Celia wets her bottom lip and I can see she's excited by the prospect of getting to explore one of Radisson's oldest and most historic dwellings. "I'll start doing the research on it. You"—she looks directly at me—"set it up and then we'll get to work."

"I'll confirm with her," I say, happy to help out.

Excellent. A local ghost hunt that will keep the boyfriends happy because they can spend more time with us and the parents pleased because we won't be traveling too far away. And my own mind can—hopefully—relax more, knowing I'll be close to home in case this doomed destiny hits.

"How does that feel?"

Mayor Donn Shy reaches around and rubs her left shoulder, which I've been working on for the last twenty minutes with the tuning-fork attunement-activation healing. "It tingles."

I smile. "That's all part of the energy working around you." I ting the tuning forks together and roll them in the air around each other, stirring up the energy field surrounding the mayor. I continue to ting and twirl the forks as I move around her, hoping to heal the pain in her shoulders and back. "Just keep breathing."

Loreen peeks through the velvet curtain and winks at me. "Everything okay back here?"

Mayor Shy smiles a vibrant white grin. "You've got an amazing gal here, Loreen."

"Thanks," I say, feeling the blush splash my face. "I have a good client here."

I notice that Loreen is wearing a soft cream-colored blouse and freshly ironed khaki slacks instead of her usual jeans and silly-saying T-shirt. Her curls are brushed neatly into place around her face, and her lips shimmer slightly with a pale pink gloss.

"Hot date?" I ask, only half kidding. I've never seen her dressed up like this before.

Her own blush gives her away. "I was, um, going to leave early tonight if you don't mind locking up, Kendall."

The mayor and I exchange knowing glances.

"You seriously have a date!" I exclaim. An image appears to me of Loreen sitting at a nice restaurant at a candlelit table holding hands with...

"Oh my God! You're going out with Father Massimo?" How cool is that! I totally saw
that
hookup coming.

Loreen turns twelve shades of crimson—if that's even possible—and drops the curtain between us. I excuse myself as the mayor chuckles at our escapades.

"Loreen! That is awesome!" I say as I come behind the curtain.

She waves me off. "Now, don't make a big deal out of it, Kendall."

My cheesy grin is too wide to hide. "Yeah, I will. I knew you two had something brewing. I could feel it a couple of months ago."

"Well, we have been seeing each other for coffee here and there, nothing serious."

"Not yet," I say with an assurance like no other reading I've done before. I've seen the two of them together in my mind's eye, but now I'm completely one hundred percent sure that they are each other's soul mates. "And to think...
I
brought you together."

"Enough," Loreen says with a laugh. "It's only dinner at the Kirby Pines."

"Hmm ... every kiss begins with
k,
" I say, paraphrasing the advertisement for Kay Jewelers. The Kirby Pines is a fancy restaurant on the outskirts of Radisson where kids go on prom dates and such and where parents go to celebrate big occasions. Father Mass must really be trying to impress Loreen. I think it's adorable.

"Kendall." She moans and rolls her eyes. "Lock up when you're done."

"Yes, ma'am," I say in an exaggerated Southern drawl.

When the store door closes behind my mentor, I return to my customer. "So sorry about that, Mayor Shy, but I couldn't
not
comment on all of that."

"Sweetie, call me Donn," she says with a kind smile. "I think it's wonderful that Loreen's getting out. She's been a loner for as long as I've been in town. That hot priest is sure to show her a good time."

Ewww ...
while I'm happy to see Loreen and Father Mass hooking up, I don't want to
think
about them hooking up. Too. Much. Information.

I pick up the Mercury tuning fork and clutch it to me. "They've both been really supportive of me since I moved here and awakened to my psychic abilities. I just want them both to be happy."

Donn reaches out a thin, tanned hand and clasps it around my wrist. "You're a special girl, Kendall."

I swallow the lump in my throat and get back to work on my client. "Thanks, Donn."

For the next fifteen minutes, I use the Mercury tuning fork to ground Donn's energy surrounding her. There's a whole set of larger tuning forks that Loreen bought for me that are aligned to each of the planets. The Earth gets so much of its energies from sister planets, the sun, and the moon.

"What's the large tuning fork for?" Donn asks as I wave it in front of her face.

"Mercury is in retrograde right now," I explain. "That means that communication can be disrupted. You're not supposed to make any big decisions or sign anything important. A lot of times computers get all kerflukey, and e-mail tends not to work while Mercury's in retrograde."

"You know your stuff, Kendall."

"I try. I feel like I read as many books on being psychic and on energy healing as I do schoolbooks."

"It shows."

I strike the large fork on the meaty part of my palm and then touch the end of it to Donn's left shoulder until I no longer feel the vibration from it. The longer it vibrates, the more that spot on the body needs energy. Donn's shoulder certainly needed the help.

"Ooo ... that feels wonderful," she says in a long sigh.

As I finish up the healing session, I figure now's as good a time as any to mention that the team is willing to investigate the mayor's mansion.

"Mayor, er, I mean, Donn, so I talked to my team about investigating your house?"

She opens her eyes. "Are they interested?"

I lick my lips and forge ahead. "And how. You said the other day that your house was haunted. Is that just a thing you say to visitors in town because of the Civil War history? Or have you ever had anything weird happen while you've been living there?"

Donn adjusts her small wire-rimmed glasses on the bridge of her nose. I can see the wheels of thought turning in her head as she carefully considers the question. After a moment, she flattens her thin lips together. "I believe my Mayer is still around me. He died so quickly when the heart attack took him. I don't know if he had time to know what was happening to him."

BOOK: The Reason
12.51Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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